Can Marvel win back the Asian markets?
Please no uncivilized comments.
This is the performance of current MCU films in select parts of Asia (more or less the biggest markets in Asia). It's a total far cry from even Phase 1 days. A lot of things happened, but the stronghold that once was is no more.
[This is a lot worse when you look at how Asia had the biggest recovery in terms of cinema admission post-pandemic. Outside of South Korea, the other two big markets (China and Japan) had at least 75-85% of moviegoers returning.](https://imgur.com/mQKnw0j)
How can Marvel win back Asia, if even possible?
This is the performance of current MCU films in select parts of Asia (more or less the biggest markets in Asia). It's a total far cry from even Phase 1 days. A lot of things happened, but the stronghold that once was is no more.
[This is a lot worse when you look at how Asia had the biggest recovery in terms of cinema admission post-pandemic. Outside of South Korea, the other two big markets (China and Japan) had at least 75-85% of moviegoers returning.](https://imgur.com/mQKnw0j)
How can Marvel win back Asia, if even possible?
Commentaires
There was a 3 year period where Marvel, and most Disney films. Were de facto barred from the Chinese market.
And at the time the Chinese were heavily restricting the number of US and Western releases. Both to prop up their domestic film industry during the Pandemic, but also in response to political tensions with the US and the first round of Trump Tariffs. Which were heavily targeted at China.
Marvel seems to have been targeted more because they were the dominating thing in the Chinese box office before this.
China has continued to do that, and is now threatening a return to stricter quotas or even total bans in response to the tariffs situation.
Liu, Chloe Zhao, LGBTQ+ representation, American Patriotism were all things China sorta mentioned as supposedly driving it. But it hasn't been just Marvel they've pushing out the last 6 or so years. And they've continued to do so.
Most Asian countries in general don't care about representation that much. As along as movie/show don't portray their country in bad light, they don't care about rest
Hollywood movies with Asian lead hardly perform different in Asia
It was a miscalculation on Feige’s part
Marvel tried to cater specifically to China. To the point where it was originally slated to premier on Chinese New Year.
And the film both got caught up in the Pandemic theatrical problem. And the political problem with China. And never received a Chinese theatrical release.
Since then the Chinese have continued to de-emphasize and limit western film releases. Which has shrunk international takes for almost all Hollywood releases.
It did reasonably well in Japan given it's short theatrical window and the Delta variant outbreak. And actually topped the Korean box office.
They are just nowhere near the scale of market that China is. And per OP's graphic. Indonesia is even smaller. While India *is not* considered a part of the same East Asian Market, and hasn't really been a big market for western films in the past.
A Korean has no attachment to it other than base aesthetic and maybe archery. A Japanese person would rather watch XMen/Wolverine movies and be properly represented there. Filipino, Indonesian, Laosian, Thai, Taiwanese, basically all of SEA except China… all of them aren’t represented in the movie.
Black Panther’s audiences were able to be a monolith because Black audiences have ~~no~~ a lineage-erased diaspora, they have no unified mythos or culture in Western and European audiences, they’ve literally been stolen and robbed of that.
You tell a Japanese or Korean person to accept Chinese representation and abandon their heritage and they’ll start a war…. they literally WERE warring states in the Three Kingdoms era.
Uh...you might need to review the definition of "diaspora".
While yes the Three Kingdoms are referring to fighting in mainland China between Cao Wei, Shu Han, and Wu dynasties, and later Jin dynasty conquest, it's so interconnected with the histories of Korea and Japan, where feudal territory disputes frequented the outskirts of Goguryeo's much longer feudal age period of 40-660AD, and Yamatai-Yamato eras of Japan from Princess Himiko 180-through-roughly-700AD with the Yamato kingship, where Himiko's rise to power is directly attributed to strengthening relations with the Cao Wei dynasty before expansion into the Jin dynasty.
Nothing I said was wrong, I know the Three Kingdoms of Korea are separate. I'm not the fucking imbecile you paint me to be, kindly, stop talking to me.
China has completely stopped going to the movies with the exception of Ne Zha 2.
Idk what the full story is, I'm sure it's something with the CCP but the billions that Hollywood used to make over there are absolutely gone.
I cited the top 10 markets worldwide by admission.
At the end of 2023, China had 1.29 billion admissions, around 25% less than 2019's figures. Obviously, you're wrong that they have stopped going to the movies.
They have been greenlighting quite a lot of Western movies by their own standards, allowing titles such as Alien: Romulus, F1, Final Destination: Bloodlines and One Battle after Another to enter the Middle Kingdom, with the first even aired uncensored.
But obviously, local titles such as Ne Zha, 731 and Detective Chinatown triumphed like you said. This is somewhat akin to Japan where the domestic audience like their own products more than Hollywood, hence the likes of Detective Conan or Demon Slayer rocking the boat over there.
Marvel wasn't the only studio to get borderline barred from the Chinese market for three years. And even when they started allowing releases again, the Chinese are still putting pressure on their market to bolster domestic films.
In 2019, Hollywood films made over $3B+ in China. ($600m from Endgame)
In 2025 so far, they've made less than $400m *combined*.
It's a market that's not going to come back.
For a long time the Chinese Audience liked those imported stories more. Right around 2019, China shifted toward *aggressively* promoting and expanding it's film industry. And they've been using various tactics to do that since. 2019 to about 2022 or 2023 was the strictest limits on number of releases, but that was also a response to Trump's tariffs. And US box office in China has been shrinking, in pretty continual and predictable fashion ever since. Even with releases being a little more regular.
And for reference, [the US also saw about a 25% decrease](https://www.the-numbers.com/market/) in tickets sold from 2019 to 2023
And 2023 is unusually high. 2024 is even lower, and this year is on track to stay low.
And Jurassic Park is the highest grossing non-chinese film of the year.
Superman didn't even hit $10 million over there.
China's domestic film industry has been growing rapidly.
What is happening is China is deliberately hampering and restricting international releases to foster their domestic film industry.
And they're about to move to a total ban of American film releases in response to the Trump Admin's tariff policies.
The fast and furious films used to do $200m-$400m in China.
Not to mention, most Asian countries didn't grow up with X-Men comics and cartoons like West and they aren't as popular there
Prices are less than 1/5 of US and 1/3 of China roughly
Honestly I doubt we ever win that market back
South Koreans are very defensive about their culture and hyper nationalist when it comes to global affairs. When the current US administration lied and accused them of being there illegally when Hyundai had the receipts of them being on specific work visas, and the detained people flew back and went on the interview circuit about inhumane detainment conditions, there’s no question that virtually every SK adult living in a metropolitan area knows, and has strong opinions about it. They’re pissed.
If you think Americans have an addiction to doomscrolling, Koreans have it an order of magnitude worse.
SK also recently had a crazy leader that tried to declare martial law for a coup, and their parliament managed to barely stave off authoritarianism and arrest him, and right now every SK citizens and first gen immigrant is shaking their heads at the rotten grapefruit and American citizens supporting him. It’s almost directly a copy paste, and the difference is appalling.
The US relies on their semiconductor and screen production, so they’re in a complete standstill politically which is why you won’t see them slinging insults at each other, but most average SK citizens are staying far away from America and their exports. Hell, the US doesn’t even export much to SK anyways, it’s oil/petrol, beef, Coca Cola, soybeans, aircraft, and movies. So it’s VERY easy to ignore US products.
You wrote a whole lot, which does beg the question... are you from South Korea? Because I am not hearing what you are saying from Koreans...
Americans have opinions on other countries. Why wouldnt other countries have opinions on America?
IMO, the Chinese are simply waking up and saying, WTF? We have great stories to tell and are happy to pay to see them on the big screen and build quality product of our own.
Aaaaand also the geopolitical stuff...
Jurassic World and fucking Mission Impossible did great numbers. It's not about politics, it's about a collapse in faith in comic book movies.
For MCU the trend is over. Even back up to MoM, people were pretty hyped up. But in the Korean market it was a let down. I feel like MoM, Eternals, Love&Thunder pretty much turned the audience indifferent. F4 was the worse performing MCU film of all time in the Korean market. Let that sink in.
When it comes to Koreans, there is a cognitive disconnect between geopolitical tension and consumer sentiment. Again, F1 did just fine. The overall cinema industry is in the dumps and CBMs have gotten a uniquely big hit. But it's not really disgust against the US in particular.
I don't think there's any tricks or secret sauce here. If anything, if you try to do something specific to win those markets... it'll be obvious pandering, everyone will notice and just generate more backlash.
In rest of the countries, you need more Star Power, bigger characters. MCU's inability to create new characters who can be as big as Tony, Steve, Thor etc has cost them.
People responded to NWH, Deadpool & Wolverine. They even responded to Dr Strange 2 & Thor, but the WOM was bad for those.
Second thought is that they need to make movies that appeal to wider audiences. Specifically more action. Films like Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four didn't seem to have a lot of action in them.
They've checked out because movies have been turned into vehicles for promoting progressive politics, which isn't marketable to socially conservative markets. Especially since some progressive politics are instant bans in those regions.
That's why Iger commented on too much social messaging and the Disney financials called out misalignment with demographics as a major risk for the company.
If Disney, and Hollywood in general, want those markets then they have to drop the progressive messaging. If they want to continue progressive messaging, then those markets are permanently off the table and they have to cut budgets by \~30% to reflect their reduced potential.
So now the MCU isn't just fighting other movies at a Chinese theater, but fighting all other American movies, and all other movies in general, to be allowed to be in a theater to begin with.
My information may be incorrect as I am very sleepy, so I may be fudging something by accident.
China did restrict superhero movies during a trade dispute in 2021-22, which didn't help Marvel, but this year they were all released, to the results noted above.
Maybe if Doomsday and Secret Wars are really good? The problem is though, Disney+ doesn't do well here, like, at all. That I think is a really big issue. Captain America and Thunderbolts have gotten really good reviews here too, it's just that most people just didn't watch the shows and dots did not connect.
Doomsday and Secret Wars doesn't have a tenth of that
But then they actually turn out for Black Captain America.
and looking into it further, it seems the whole poster thing may be false propaganda.